their application.^8 But there are a few deities of whom the honorific sang-yang is
used, but not batara, e.g. sang-yang tunggal, ‘the only God,’ sang-yang sokma,
etc.
“Thus batara would seem to be limited in use to the actual names of Hindu
deities as distinct from epithets describing those deities. “Batara Guru” would
seem to be an exception—the only one—to this rule, and to point to the fact that
the original meaning of guru had been lost sight of, and that the expression had
come to be regarded only as a proper name.”
Occasionally, as is only to be expected, the Malays get mixed in their
mythology, and of this Mr. Wilkinson gives two examples, one of the
identification of Batara Guru (Shiva) with Brahma (Bĕrahmana), and another of
the drawing of a distinction between “Guru” (Shiva) and “Mahadewa,” which
latter is only another name for the same divinity.
Such slips are inevitable among an illiterate people, and should always be
criticised by comparison with the original Hindu tenets, from which these ideas
may be presumed to have proceeded.
Mr. Wilkinson quotes an extraordinary genealogy representing, inter alia, “Guru
as the actual father of the Hindu Trinity,” and also of “Sambu” (whom he cannot
identify), and “Sĕri, who is the Hindu Sri, the goddess of grain, and, therefore, a
deity of immense importance to the old Javanese and Malays.”
On this I would only remark that Sambu (or Jambu) is the first portion of the
name almost universally ascribed to the Crocodile-spirit by the Peninsular
Malays.^9
It would be beyond the scope of this work to attempt the identification of Batara
Guru (Shiva) with all the numerous manifestations and titles attributed to him by
the Malays, but the special manifestation (of Shiva), which is called “Kala,”
forms an integral part of the general conception, whether among the Malays or
Hindus, and is, therefore, deserving of some attention.
The Malay conception of Batara Guru seems to have been that he had both a
good and a bad side to his character. Though he was “Destroyer” he was also
“Restorer-to-life,”^10 and it would appear that these two opposite manifestations